"Go on."
"Five thousand"
The Saint clicked his tongue reproachfully.
"Ten thousand pounds," said the man shakily. "I'll give you ten thousand pounds to let me go!"
"This is getting interesting," drawled the Saint. "Have you got all this money in your pocket?"
"I can get it for you." The man dropped his voice lower, although neither of them had spoken far above a whisper.
The Saint sighed.
"Sorry, brother, but this is a cash business."
"You could have it first thing in the morning-before that, if you wanted it."
"Where is it coming from?" asked the Saint, with calculated scepticism. "Will you do down into the village and hold out your hat, or are you going to burgle the bank?"
"I know where I can get it. I've got to meet a man- to-night!"
"Where are you going to meet him?"
The man glared at him silently, with narrowing eyes; but Simon stuck to his point.
"Let me go and meet this man," he said slowly. "If hell pay ten thousand quid to save your life, I'll come back and see about it."
"How do I know you will?"
"You don't," Simon admitted sadly. "But you can take it from me that unless I do see this bird and his money I'm not going to do anything for you. And then the uncertainty would be so much more trying. Instead of wondering whether I was going to help you or not, you'd only be able to wonder whether you were going to be buried alive under the public bar or fed to the congers off Larkstone Point."
He kept his light focused on the ginger-haired man's blotched puffy face, and read everything that was going on in the mind behind it.
"He'll be waiting on the road to Axminster, exactly three miles from Seaton," came the reply at length. "He'll do anything to get me out. For God's sake, hurry!"
Simon doubted whether God would really be deeply concerned, but he allowed the invocation to pass unchallenged. He bent forward and replaced the gag as it had been when he came in, and switched out his light on the ginger-haired man's mutely terrified eyes.
"If they have fed you to the congers when I get back, I'll go fishing," he murmured kindly.
He left the office on this encouraging note, and let himself out into the back yard by the door at the end of the kitchen passage. The garage doors had been left open, and after a second's hesitation he began to manoeuvre his car out of its place by hand. It was a task that taxed all his strength, but he preferred the hard work to the risk of starting the engine where it might be heard by someone in the hotel. Fortunately the garage was built on a slight slope, and after a good deal of straining and perspiration he manhandled the big Hirondel into a position where he could get in behind the wheel and coast out of the yard and down the hill until it was safe to touch the self-starter. At the first corner he turned round, and sent the great purring monster droning back up the grade towards the Seaton Road. He was well on his way before he remembered that he had not even waited to tell Hoppy Uniatz where he was going.
There was something else which he had forgotten, but he did not recall that until much later.
He was conscious of a deep and solemn exhilaration. The sublime good fortune that was always spreading itself so prodigally over all his adventures showed no signs of shirking its responsibilities. Destiny was still doing its stuff. One got a letter, one went somewhere, one exchanged a few lines of affable badinage with a selection of mysterious blokes, one dotted an ugly sinner on the button, and forthwith the wheels began to go round. It might have been a coincidence that he had had cause to smite Ginger Whiskers so early in the proceedings; but from then on everything had unwound like clockwork. The presence of Ginger Whiskers, bound and gagged, in that locked office, was only part of the machinery -obviously, when Jeffroll had come out and seen him slumbering peacefully and harmlessly on the floor, the opportunity to put him away must have seemed far too good to miss. Simon would have grabbed at it himself, and he guessed that that decision was the cause of the message which had summoned the Four Horsemen from the dining-room and broken up their friendly exchange of compliments. Everything, up to that point, was clear: the mystery of what it was all about remained. But the eccentric philanthropist who was willing to pay ten thousand pounds for the life of a blister like Ginger-head might offer some more hints on that subject.
He understood the ginger-haired man's psychology to three places of decimals. Whatever the outcome of this interview might be, the waiting accomplice would at least learn what had happened to his confederate; and Ginger Whiskers was doubtless banking far more heavily on the advantages of getting this message through than on the Saint's desire to help him. If their positions had been reversed, the Saint would have gambled on the same horse. But before that bet was decided he hoped to become much wiser himself-he had forgotten that in certain circles he was one of the best-known men in England.
The trip meter on the dash was just turning over the third mile from Seaton when he picked up a red light stationary by the side of the road. As his headlights drew nearer to it he saw that it was the rear light of a small saloon of a popular make. He dimmed his lights and pulled in just in front of it; and a man came up, walking with quick jerky steps. "Is that you, Garthwait?"
Simon gathered that this was the name by which Ginger was known to the police. He hunched his shoulders and tried to remember Garthwait's rasping voice. "Yes."
The light of a powerful torch was flashed on his face, and he heard the unknown man's hissing breath.
"At least," he said quickly, "Garthwait sent me"
"Mr. Simon Templar, isn't it?" said the other gently. "I know your face quite well."
For a moment the Saint almost recanted his views on the lavish publicity which the newspapers had given to some of his exploits, although for many years that disreputable fame had been one of his most modest vanities. But he smiled.
"You do know your way around, don't you, dear old bird?" he remarked.
"That is my business," said the other dryly, as if he was making a very subtle joke. "Please keep your hands on the steering wheel, where I can see them. I've got you covered, my friend, and I could shoot you long before you could reach your gun."
His voice had a dusty pedantic quality which was the last intonation Simon Templar would ever have expected from a man who spoke of unlawful armaments and sudden death with so much self-possession.
"You're welcome," said the Saint amiably. "My life is insured, and I'm considered to be an A. 1 risk. I wish I could say the same for Comrade Garthwait. There seems to be some sort of idea that he would be Good for Contented Congers; but he said you'd pay ten thousand pounds to keep him on dry land, and I thought it might be worth looking into. I suppose love is blind, but what you can see in a wall-eyed wart like that"
"Where is Garthwait?"
"When I saw him last, he was gagged up and tied together with wire, meditating about the After Life." "Where was this?" "In the Old House." "The hotel?"
"Oh, no," said the Saint carefully. "It was too risky to keep him there. Don't you know the Old House?"
The man behind the flashlight did not pursue the subject. "And he told you I'd give you ten thousand pounds to let him out?"
"That's what he said. I'm afraid I thought he was a bit optimistic at the time, but I didn't like to discourage him.
After all, when there's so much money at stake"
"How do you know that?" asked the other sharply. The Saint smiled. "Garthwait told me." "Did he tell you about last night's job?" "Yes, he told me that, too," answered Simon coolly, and knew in the next instant that he had made a fatal mistake- the man he was talking to was as alive to all the tricks of the trade as he was himself.
"That's interesting," said the dry stilted voice, "because there was never any such thing as 'last night's job.' You had better get out of that car, Mr. Templar. If Garthwait is really in danger, it would doubtless be diminished if your friends knew that you were in a similar predicament."